


Echo & Narcissus

by aperplexingpuzzle



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Blood, M/M, Mirrors, Strexcorp, cecilos - Freeform, general angst and creepiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2013-11-13
Packaged: 2018-01-01 08:24:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aperplexingpuzzle/pseuds/aperplexingpuzzle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Narcissus and Echo were one and the same, but that makes his story no less of a tragedy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echo & Narcissus

When Cecil walks into his recording booth on a Monday morning, there is a mirror hanging on the wall.

He does not hesitate. Cracking his knuckles, he lifts the mirror off its hook and lets it fall. Glass shards scatter everywhere, and he calls an intern in to clean up the mess.

The day’s broadcast goes smoothly, and Cecil rushes through the message from StrexCorp as quickly as he dares. That night he goes home to the arms of a scientist who is not perfect, but who is perfect for him. You understand.

The next day, there is a mirror bolted to the wall of his recording booth, with a small note taped to it cheerfully informing him that any further destruction of company property would result in a mandatory retraining seminar. Cecil reads the note, and spends the next twenty minutes carefully covering the mirror in yellow Post-It notes. His broadcast starts two minutes late because of this, but as the preceding broadcast was three hours of deep, impenetrable silence, his lapse goes unnoticed.

On Wednesday morning, _every_ wall of his recording booth is covered in mirrors. A small note taped to his microphone informs him that the use of Post-It notes is now against company policy. Cecil considers taking a ream of paper and taping it, sheet by sheet, to his mirrored walls, but the effort would take him over an hour to complete, and his job would become much more complicated if StrexCorp were to ban the use of paper. Instead, he stares fixedly at the ceiling as he gives his report. A small, niggling temptation in the back of his mind reminds him that it has been years since he’s seen himself in a mirror, forcing him to wonder what he’s grown to look like since then. He ignores it, though that night when he goes home, he stares deeply into Carlos’ eyes—not out of love and admiration as he usually would, but out of desperation to catch a glimpse of his own reflection in those tiny little mirrors. It doesn’t work.

Thursday and Friday pass, and Cecil continues to address himself to the ceiling. Sometimes he goes home and looks for himself in his lover’s eyes, but sometimes he does not. Life is not perfect, but it is perfect for him. You understand.

—

On a Saturday afternoon, Cecil gives into temptation. His reasoning is this: as he is looking at the photo of himself that he keeps to remind himself of his own appearance, he realizes suddenly that every photo he has of himself was taken in the past. Whether a picture was taken days or hours or seconds ago, it can only show him what he was, and never how he is in the present moment. This limitation of photography has never before occurred to him, but now he is terrified. 

And so, for the barest of seconds, Cecil looks at himself in the mirror. What he sees is reassuring because, as it turns out, he is not so different in this present moment from how he has been in all those previous moments. The fact that no terrible tragedy has occurred as a result of this lapse in commitment is also comforting, and it is with this thought in mind that he dares to take a second, slightly longer look on his way out the door that evening.

The following morning, there is a gift basket addressed to Cecil sitting on his desk, with a note attached thanking him for being such a model employee. Cecil is bewildered, but pleased, and as he reads StrexCorp’s daily message over the air that afternoon, he does not rush so quickly through it. An intern smiles at him through the glass, and he smiles back, and catches sight of his own smile reflected back at him in a nearby mirror. It is a beautiful thing, he thinks, to bear witness to your own joy at the moment of its happening, and he says so over the radio later that evening, staring at himself as he speaks.

Carlos looks a bit haggard that night as they sit quietly together over dinner, although Cecil is not entirely sure of this fact as he’s become distracted by his own distorted image in the back of a spoon.

“StrexCorp recently became a major funder of our scientific research, you know,” the scientist says tiredly, pushing food across his plate. “And granted, the money is nice, but they’ve just been breathing down our backs so much lately, and there are so many new restrictions… I think I’m the only one on my team who wishes they hadn’t come at all.”

Cecil feels a flash of irritation at this, though he can’t explain it and doesn’t verbalize it. That night, once Carlos is asleep, he sneaks into the bathroom and, hesitating only briefly, uncovers the mirror.

The heavy drop cloth falls to the floor with a thud.

—

The most fascinating thing about reflections, Cecil decides, is how they change.

The changes occur almost daily, sometimes even hourly, with those little minute differences that mark the passing of time—stubble that is shaved and then unshaved, hair that is messy and then combed. Dark circles under his eyes that come and go, though recently they mostly come, as more of his nights are spent in quiet contemplation in front of the bathroom mirror. His smile has changed too, appearing almost imperceptibly wider each morning than it was the morning before. It’s strange though, that smile. He has the oddest realization that he can’t be certain whether it is his smile that changed first, or whether his reflection’s smile has grown slowly wider, and he has changed his own to follow suit.

He thinks this should be terrifying, but it is not. He just smiles widely, and his intern smiles widely, and later that day he learns that his employers have given him a raise. 

“StrexCorp,” he says over the radio, and he smiles, and his reflection smiles wider, and he smiles wider. “It is everything.”

—

“Carlos?”

“Hmm?”

“Has a mirror ever shown you something that isn’t real?”

“…I don’t think so. Maybe. Why?”

“Well, has a mirror ever spoken to you?”

“Not personally, but in this town I’d believe anything. Good night.”

“…Good night.”

—

Cecil is less and less convinced these days that mirrors portray a true portrait of reality, though as time goes on, this bothers him less and less.

Still, it’s a bit disconcerting the first time his reflection speaks.

_“Hello.”_

Cecil stares into the glass of the mirror, a deep unease building in the pit of his gut. His reflection’s eyes are… much _blacker_ than he would have expected them to be. He has no way of knowing if his own eyes have followed suit, for while he can see himself in reflections and see himself in photographs, these are only images of himself, and not the real thing.

Still, there is something about watching his reflection’s lips move without his own mouth following suit that feels distinctly unbalanced, so Cecil repeats the phrase.

“Hello.”

The reflection grins widely, and his teeth seem a bit sharper than Cecil has grown used to seeing. He feels covertly at his own teeth with his tongue to see if anything has changed, but cannot come to any concrete conclusions. It is not unpleasant, though, or at least not in his eyes. Just… sharp.

 _“Your smile is beautiful,”_ his reflection says, and Cecil is happy to repeat it.

“Your smile is beautiful.”

“You _are beautiful._ ”

“ _You_ are beautiful.”

His reflection examines him intently for a moment, and then beams.

_“Let’s be friends.”_

“Let’s be friends,” Cecil agrees cheerfully, and smiles to see everything so balanced. There is no harm in repeating these words, he thinks, not when he so wholeheartedly agrees with them.

When he goes home that night, Carlos is already asleep, sprawled out across the couch. Even in sleep, his forehead is creased with perpetual frown lines, and a small moan crawls from between his teeth as Cecil places a delicate hand on his forehead. Two bowls of gluten-free pasta sit uneaten on the table, both already cold, and Cecil heats them both up, eating one and then the other.

As he eats, he looks around the small apartment and thinks how beautiful he and Carlos would look, reflected in a thousand mirrors.

—

When Cecil walks into his recording booth on a Monday morning, everything is wet.

He whistles, sitting at his desk and straightening the stack of papers containing the day’s broadcast. An intern smiles at him through the glass and he smiles back, and his reflection says hello, and he says hello back. Together, he and his reflection report on the day’s events, and if his reflection sometimes says something a little differently from him—the name of a town, for example, or the name of a person—well, the two reports are still very similar, so it’s alright.

Before he leaves for the night, he remembers to type up a note for the new station management thanking them for the updated radio equipment. His shoes squelch pleasantly on his way out the door, and he hums a bit of the weather.

Carlos is awake this time as Cecil opens the door, drinking deeply from an amber-colored bottle. He looks up at Cecil’s approach—and the bottle slips from between his fingers, shattering and sending glass and liquid shooting across the floor.

“Cecil!” he cries, jumping up in concern. “What happened to you?? Cecil, are you—Cecil—“ He stops, eyes widening with dull horror at something in Cecil’s face that he doesn’t understand, before backing away from him slowly. “No. Nonononono, this is another one of these _things_ , isn’t it? They’ve—you’ve—” He clutches at his head. “What’s happening? Why does no one seem to notice?”

Cecil tilts his head, smiling curiously, and Carlos glares viciously at him. “No! No, don’t—don’t _smile_ like that! It’s not you, Cecil. _You’re not you._ I mean, you are but you aren’t—I don’t know.” His hands are clenching and unclenching, seemingly without him noticing. “I’ve tried to research what’s happening,” he mutters lowly. “I’ve tried—but there are so many restrictions. I got caught. They—“ He flinches subconsciously, clutching at his chest, and Cecil notices for the first time an angry red burn peeking out from beneath his collar. “I barely eat anymore, I don’t trust the food, and I don’t trust the water, but—but I just drank my last water bottle that I brought with me from outside of Night Vale yesterday, and—“ 

He stops short as his back hits the wall. Cecil is surprised. He hadn’t realized he was advancing on him.

“Are you still in there, Cecil?” Carlos pleads desperately, looking up at him. “Can you hear me at all? Please, s-say something?”

A small bead of moisture gathers at the corner of Carlos’ eye and trickles down his cheek, and something dislodges in Cecil’s brain. Perfect Carlos, hurt. Perfect Carlos, _crying_ …

It’s like awakening from a trance, like a bucket of cold water thrown across his face, and Cecil gasps reflexively. Something’s… wrong… why are his hands so wet, so red? His head aches… his head _burns_ … He tries to speak, but the noise lodges somewhere in his throat. He is panicking. He has no words, his head is burning, and he has _no words_.

Staggering back, Cecil claws at his face to get to the source of the agony, but then Carlos’ cool strong hands are gripping his, restraining them.

“You are still there, aren’t you?” he says, a determined hope budding in his voice. “Speak to me, Cecil. _Look at me_.”

He looks, staring into Carlos’ shining, too-wet eyes… and sees _himself_ , reflected back. _He_ is everywhere—in the glass shards shattered across the floor, in the distant reflection of a teapot, in the dull reflection of windows. How had Cecil ever thought himself able to avoid mirrors when they came in so many shapes and forms?

The pain is gone. _He_ is smiling, and Cecil is smiling too, because finally, _finally_ , he has words.

_“Oh Carlos…”_

“Oh Carlos…”

_“Dear, sweet, perfect Carlos…”_

“Dear, sweet, perfect Carlos…

_“You’ve been strong alone for so long, haven’t you?”_

“You’ve been strong alone for so long, haven’t you?”

_“Shh… come here.”_

“Shh… come here.”

Cecil envelops Carlos in a hug, smiling softly as Carlos jerks against him, a thin stream of red wetness running from the corner of his mouth.

This is a moment, he thinks, that he will never forget. No relationship is perfect, not even that of Cecil and Carlos, but every relationship has its moments of strengthening resolve. Things would never be perfect… but at the same time, they were.

You understand.


End file.
